1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to storage cabinets such as utility cabinets and medicine cabinets of the type used in residential dwellings and the like to store food, kitchen ware, personal belongings, medicines, toiletries, and a variety of household and other belongings. More particularly, this invention relates to an improved cabinet construction providing an adjustable internal cabinet configuration with a highly versatile shelf and storage unit geometry, various interchangeable storage units including drawers.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Divided cabinets are known for use in storing a variety of items in residential dwellings. Traditional cabinets have commonly comprised a forwardly open cabinet housing constructed to fit into or onto the wall of a residence. They are typically permanently installed during residence construction and only refinished, refurbished, or replaced at notable expense to the owner. Examples of such cabinets can be found in residential kitchens, bedrooms, garages, and bathrooms. For instance, the traditional medicine cabinet or bath storage cabinet is a simple enclosed shell or body made from steel, plastic or aluminum with a hinged door. A mirror is usually attached to the exterior of the door for grooming and a magnetic or friction spring catch is used to hold the door in the closed position. The interior of the cabinet generally contains several full width shelves that most often can be adjusted up or down to fit the storage needs of the user. Some bath cabinets, however, only offer a number of fixed, non-adjustable shelves. Nearly all bath cabinets are designed for permanent installation. While some cabinets are designed to be installed with the body itself recessed into a hollow wall, others allow the cabinet to be mounted on the surface of the wall.
Although medicine cabinets of the above-described general type have been well-known for many years, the traditional cabinet construction incorporates a variety of inherent limitations and disadvantages. As an example, while some cabinet designs have some adjustable selection of shelf position, but these have generally been limited to an array of shelves spanning the full width of the cabinet interior. For instance, many of the medicine cabinets being sold today have only three shelves for storing toilet articles. Accordingly, when one or more relatively tall articles such as a bottle of mouthwash or the like is to be stored within the cabinet, it must be provided with an entire shelf in order to have sufficient clearance to accept the tall bottle. This unfortunately results in a significant waste of space within the medicine cabinet, since the user rarely has a sufficient number of tall bottles to occupy an entire shelf width.
In order to increase the utility of storage and medicine cabinets, various designs have been proposed. One such newly designed cabinet is shown in Aisley U.S. Pat. No. 5,255,971, which discloses a medicine cabinet having preformed grooves therein which cooperate with one or more upright central shelf support partition or brackets to support an array of half width shelf members in a customized geometry of half and full width shelves. This cabinet is constructed predominately of molded plastic components. While this cabinet does propose some improvements that would be helpful, it uses a vertical central support bracket to support its shelves. This vertical support partition splits the adjustable interior shelves in half limiting the users ability to optimize, tailor, and customize the cabinet storage and shelving capability.
Another device designed to increase the utility of medicine cabinets is shown in Carter et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,980, which discloses an insert designed to fit a standard medicine cabinet body and provide flexible shelving options Once installed into an existing medicine cabinet this medicine cabinet organizing insert creates a more efficient use of the space available by using a vertical divider in its rectangular frame to divide the organizing insert into two vertical compartments. The insert divides the cabinet into unequal storage spaces with one side having a plurality of adjustable shelves. As in the Aisley device, the necessity of this vertical partition limits the users ability to optimize, tailor, and customize the cabinet storage and shelving capability.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,484,196 of Kim discloses a cabinet wherein half shelves have a built-in bracket on one end with a hook which engages a vertical slot in the middle of the back wall off the cabinet to support one end of the shelf.
A cabinet with a vertical partition limits the users ability to store long or large objects. For instance storing a curling iron would require the impractical technique of standing the iron up on end in a shelf tall enough to accept its length. Similarly, it would not be possible to store a large or odd shaped item such a blow dryer in a divided cabinet. Further, these designs do not incorporate the safety features of a drawer with a child resistant lock. Nor do they include independently supported shelves or storage units. Failure of the vertical support partition or a severe jar may cause the contents of every shelf to be dumped out of the front of a cabinet that does not use independently supported storage units. Finally, the above designs do not include shelves with pockets for storing toothbrushes and shaving razors, or pockets for storing the power cords for electronic razors, curling irons, blow dryers, or other electronic bathroom items.
There exists, therefore, a significant need for improvements in the design and construction of a storage cabinet, particularly with respect to improved storage space customization and versatility through the arrangement of adjustable shelves and storage units that are independently supportable without a central vertical partition. It is therefore desirable to have an improved cabinet construction providing a highly adjustable internal cabinet shelf and storage unit geometry, various inter-changeable storage units including drawers with child resistant locking mechanisms and shelves, an improved door hinge assembly, and an improved door latching mechanism. The present invention fulfills all of these needs and provides further related advantages.